“He was OK,” Canucks coach Travis Green joked after the game about the 20-year-old centre’s performance. “He was great, man. He was on tonight. What are you going to say? Big day for him … he was dialled in.

“These last couple games, he had that look. He’s just getting better.”

The Canucks dominated the shot count and much of the possession for most of this NHL game, but found themselves in overtime, yielding two goals to the Ottawa Senators in the game’s final minutes at the Canadian Tire Centre.

The Canucks controlled the danger areas in their own end for much of Wednesday’s game, and Jacob Markstrom was chalking up another strong performance in goal.

But Vancouver’s penalty killing, which had been on a great run to close 2018, returned to its former “wobbliness,” yielding a pair of goals to Ottawa.

Dylan DeMelo of the Ottawa Senators defends against Elias Pettersson, who netted his first NHL hat trick in the win.Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photo /
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That kept the Senators in the game. With their goalie pulled, the hosts then tied the game when Mark Stone — the man who is all the talk of the town these days, what with his contract set to expire this summer — hammered the puck home from just in front of Markstrom.

Ironically, the Canucks also found their power-play groove, getting goals with the man advantage from Sven Baertschi and Pettersson. Pettersson scored his first goal of the game at even strength in the second period.

The Senators’ power-play markers in regulation were scored by Matt Duchene in the second period and Christian Wolanin in the third.

Here’s what else we learned in Ottawa:

Paying it to Petey

It was a big day for the Canucks’ super rookie. There was the hat trick. Earlier in the day, he was named December’s Rookie of the Month and then selected for the NHL All-Star Game.

“It feels good. I can’t lie about it. I’m very happy about it,” Pettersson said of getting his first NHL hat trick.

Pettersson’s second-period goal pushed him to 40 points, putting him in elite company.

Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Connor McDavid all have managed to score 40 points in fewer than 40 games to open their careers.

Elias Pettersson became the 53rd player in the NHL’s modern era to accumulate 40 career points within their first 40 NHL games (spanning seasons or otherwise).

Pettersson then hammered home his second of the game on a third-period power play, a one-timed slap shot off an Alex Edler pass that went into the top corner to the right of Senators goalie Marcus Hogberg.

His third goal came seconds after he nearly scored on a previous rush, but he hit the post to the right of Hogberg.

“We both want to become better and also build chemistry,” Pettersson said of playing with Boeser.

He said he was excited about going to the all-star game, too.

“I’m very happy with that. All the stars in the NHL are there, players I’ve been growing up watching. I’m going to be playing with them,” he said.

Pettersson is now up to 1.14 points per game, a rate that puts him behind only Crosby and Ovechkin in their rookie seasons.

Markstrom makes mark

The main factor in moving out Anders Nilsson before the game was to pave the way for rookie goalie Thatcher Demko. But the play of Jacob Markstrom is also part of the story.

Markstrom, the Canucks’ No. 1 netminder, has been excellent since the beginning of December, and the solidification of his game meant the Canucks were ready to bring in Demko to play understudy.

“Even when we were losing, some games I felt like we were playing better than I did on this stretch,” he said. “It’s nice when we score three, four goals. It’s always easier to be a goalie, for sure.”

“I’m super confident where my game is heading. And I’m just trying to take one day at a time, don’t overthink it too much. You put in your work in practice and then go out in your game and have fun.”

Markstrom made a number of crucial saves — including one on a Magnus Paajarvi short-handed breakaway not long before Pettersson scored the Canucks’ third power-play goal — and another with three minutes to play, stoning Brady Tkachuk on the doorstep.

Apples for Alex

Alex Edler had a hand in three of Vancouver’s goals.

He had the shot that led to a rebound for Baertschi to score his goal, he put Boeser in on a rush before Boeser dished to Pettersson, and then he had the cross-ice setup for Pettersson’s second goal.

Erik Gudbranson of the Vancouver Canucks crashes into netminder Marcus Hogberg of the Ottawa Senators as Maxime Lajoie of the Senators looks on in Ottawa.Jana Chytilova /
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A ring-a-ding-ding

The Canucks got 17 shots on goal in the first period.

They kept firing away in the second, getting nine more in the first nine minutes.

And two shot attempts rang off the posts behind Hoberg, too, Boeser on a long shot through a crowd, then Ben Hutton not long after on the power play.

Baertschi finally burst Hogberg’s bubble, banging home a rebound from an Edler power-play point shot, the Canucks’ 26th shot of the game. They had 30 through 40 minutes.

The shot parade continued in the third: though it took nine minutes for the Canucks to record two shots, they still ended up with 14 in the final frame, ending the night with 45 shots on goal.

Drop ’em

Tim Schaller’s season so far has been a disappointment. He’s been a healthy scratch more times than anyone expected him to be after he signed as a free agent in the summer.

He sat out eight consecutive games before playing against the Senators.

That he’s goalless tells some of the story, but he was expected to be a positive influence on the penalty kill, too.

Getting his first start in weeks, he threw a hit on his first shift, and on his fifth shift he got in a fight.

Concern for Leivo

Josh Leivo, who’s played a regular role on the Canucks’ top two lines since joining the team from Toronto in a trade a month ago, was injured early in the first period.

He left the bench about halfway through the period, in the company of medical trainer Jon Sanderson.

Neither Sanderson nor Leivo returned to the bench during the rest of the game. Leivo was listed as “doubtful” to play Thursday in Montreal.

Big crowd

The Senators haven’t been drawing big crowds for a few reasons; mainly, there’s a growing movement among the local fan base to oppose owner Eugene Melnyk. That and the team just isn’t very good — they’re last in the NHL.

So there wasn’t much reason to think the game against the Canucks would be different.

And then the game started. The building wasn’t full, but it was far from empty, without a doubt a much stronger turnout than the Canucks have played in front of in places such as Raleigh, N.C., and Sunrise, Fla., and similar to the bigger crowds that have turned out to Rogers Arena this season.

There was a notable Canucks fan presence, and when Pettersson scored late in the second, there was no missing their voices.

In the third period, there was even a notable “Go Canucks Go” chant, which went unmatched by the home fans.

Anders Nilsson of the Ottawa Senators, who was traded earlier in the day, chats with former teammate Elias Pettersson.Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photo /
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Those guys are in the wrong sweaters

It was an odd sight seeing both Nilsson and Mike McKenna sporting sweaters that mismatched horribly with their equipment.

Of course, the two goalies were swapped for each other before the game, the first day-of-game trade since Gino Odjick was traded to the New York Islanders for Jason Strudwick in 1998.

McKenna, who apparently has such a passion for cooking that he travels with his own set of knives, is likely destined for the Utica Comets in short order. General manager Jim Benning said on a Wednesday afternoon conference call that the plan was to call up Demko by the weekend.

In his final game before he joins the #Canucks, Thatcher Demko with 31 saves in a 4-2 Utica victory.

McKenna served as backup to Markstrom, while Nilsson — who told Ottawa media he had several suits packed with him and some warm clothes, and thus wasn’t worried in the short term about his sudden move to the nation’s capital — backed up Hogberg but is expected to play a lot in the coming weeks.

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